Special Report: The Right to Food Is a Basic Human Right

(February 8, 2009) This is a special Hunger Notes report on the right to food. Why shouldn’t people have enough food, earned in the usual case by working, to keep themselves alive and alert? A very reasonable goal, but one which is far from being met, though there has been significant progress in the past 10 years. This report examines both the progress and the frustrations.

The human right to food has its contemporary origin within the U.N. Universal Human Rights framework. The main reference point is located within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (U.N. 1948), Article 25, which states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food.” It provided a reference point for human rights legislation that followed but is not itself a binding international legal instrument.1

The modern human rights framework for a specific right essentially consists of a legal framework in a country that establishes something as a right, including an effective procedure for enforcing the right, a process for adjudicating individual rights cases (which can involve different interpretations of the legal framework), and resources provided to address the outcome of rights decisions. In the United States two good examples would be the right to bear arms or the right to asylum. There is a legal code that defines the right, has the ability to actually influence outcomes, a procedure for adjudicating different definitions, and money provided to facilitate the process and outcomes. In the case of asylum for example, United States has provided various legal reasons permitting asylum in the United States for various groups, a process for adjudicating disputes, and billions of dollars to permit and facilitate this asylum.

What has evolved has been progressive implementation of the right to food.

Asbjørn Eide in The human right to food and contemporary globalization explores the fundamental reason why current globalization efforts have been opposed by so many: globalization in its initial formulation meant concern for poor and oppressed people thoughout the world, and not just reducing the barriers to trade and corporate investment.

Wenche Barth Eide and Uwe Kracht in Challenges ahead for the human right to food discuss official responses to the world food crisis, which have paid only slight attention to the human right to food, and briefly discuss next steps.

Arne Oshaug in Progress in reducing hunger after the World Food Summit discusses two main global initiatives to reduce hunger:

the World Food Summit (WFS), its commitments, and follow up

the Millennium development goals and their follow up

Both the World Food Summit and the Millennium development goals recognize the importance of food to alleviate hunger and its importance to human beings, though not addressing it in the context of a legal right. However, as major international efforts–if major international effort is not an oxymoron–they can facilitate the human right to food. Oshaug points out

the failure to meet the WFS hunger reduction goals

the declining practical importance of achieving these goals (even for the FAO, that convened the WFS),

the replacement of the WFS goal by the lesser Millennium development goal and the degree to which this goal is being achieved

The Human Right to Food in developing countries

The right to food has been gaining in developing countries. Right to food advocates recognize that the right to food cannot be achieved overnight in developing countries. Thus advocates–and the emerging legal framework–place great importance on two concepts–progressive implementation and voluntary guidelines.

Brazil has been a leader in implementing the right to food. Patrus Ananias in Implementing the human right to food in Brazil describes the progress that Brazil has made and the key components of its advances.

FIAN has been in the forefront of examining country polices in light of the human right to food. Specific country studies include

The FAO right to food page provides much useful information on right to food developments. The front page provides a summary of recent developments as well as links to further information on FAO efforts. There is also a valuable on-line right to food course.

The Human Right to Food in the United States

The second section of Messer and Cohen’s US approaches to Food and Nutrition Rights, 1976-2008 describes alternative US approaches to the right to food.

Thomas J. Marchione in The right to food 1998-2008: a casualty of the war on terror explains what the United States has not done, but might have, in advancing the human right to food.

There has been a record of overall failure of governments to address world hunger. In spite of the 1995 World Food Summit commitment to reduce world hunger by half from 824 billion then to 412 billion by 2015, the number of hungry people has in fact increased to over 1 billion. Two recent studies address this failure: the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2009 by Fian International and others and Bridging the Divide by Oxfam.

Countries in Latin America pioneer an anti-poverty program that works–paying poor families a stipend and requiring that school-age children stay in school Tyler BridgesMcClatchy Newspapers September 21, 2009The World Bank description of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia program A United Nations Development Program evaluation of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia Brazil has been a leader in implementing the right to food as referenced in Patrus Ananias article above. This article describes a key program and its successes.

This special report on the right to food is
dedicated to our colleague and friend, Tom
Marchione, who died unexpectedly in 2008. Tom
Marchione, among other virtues, combined a
concern for poor and hungry people, a deep
understanding of nutrition and how nutrition of
the poor was affected by social and economic
structures, and a willingness to engage
institutions that he was a member of, including
the United States Agency for International
Development and anthropologists in the United
States, to be more effective actors in the
reduction of hunger. His qualities as a
friend were very real, and, together with his
and our concern for food as a human right,
played a key role in organizing this special
report, and us as contributors to it.

The Right to food–1998 articles

This issue of Hunger Notes is dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR) and to the United Nations. The creation of a statement of rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the United Nations, which establishes means by which the nations of the world may take steps to protect these rights, together represent a fundamental step forward for mankind. (Continued)

The Right to Adequate Food is a fundamental human right firmly established in international law. This right flows from the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966. The Right to Adequate Food has been reaffirmed in many pronouncements of the international community over the last 50 years. It is the UDHR that clarifies that the realization of all human rights– civil, cultural, economic, political and social– is needed to guarantee a life in dignity for all members of the human family. A life in dignity requires that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing…” (Article 25, UDHR). (Continued)

The World Food Summit (WFS), which gathered in Rome two years ago, will hardly enter history as a landmark conference like the 1974 World Food Conference or the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. But it did open a few windows of opportunity, which could have a fundamental impact on the way we deal with food and development problems in the future. (Continued)

Human Rights and Nutrition Practice after the Cold War (June, 1998)

Thomas J. Marchione

As we approach the next millennium, food and nutrition professionals and others searching for solutions to the world’s widespread undernutrition and hunger find themselves within a new post-Cold War development era. With the diminution and conclusion of the Cold War as a global conflict over the last quarter century, the international development environment changed profoundly while hundreds of millions still remain undernourished. (Continued)

This issue of Hunger Notes honors the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Analyzing 50 years of human rights treaties and subsequent commitments is an important responsibility for all human rights organizations and social justice activists. (Continued)

Human Rights Treaty Compliance (June, 1998)

Ellen Messer

For 50 years the legal and political concept of human rights has been evolving as a set of universal norms for the international community and its component states. Paragraph 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) declares: “…everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food…” Article 11 of the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966) adds: “…State parties to the present Covenant recognize the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger…” and “…to take steps to the maximum of…available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized.” Approximately 200 additional UN instruments address the right to adequate food and nutrition within civil-political, economic-social-cultural, development, and indigenous rights constructions. (Continued)

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